My first impression of Scratch was that it looked childish and elementary. The animations are really simple and the video made it seem easy to put together a small skit. This was good because I don’t want to delve into nitty-gritty programming. However, I do still want a little challenge. Luckily, Scratch offers a good amount of each and I enjoyed working with it.

After playing around with Scratch, I realized it was more than I had expected. I thought the effects were a little confusing initially. However, after a few minutes of testing random effects and messing around with the tools, I got the hang of it. The different types of effects are organized nicely and clearly. It actually is rather simplistic, but it is still engaging nonetheless. I think it’s the perfect balance of skill for this specific class.

For my animation I made the cat dance to a beat. I used the text effect to say “Hello” and “Let’s dance!” Then I played two different drum beats and made the character change its costume to give the appearance of a dance motion. I then layered a mosaic effect on it. This repeated 10 times. It was surprisingly fun to create and actually entertaining. Then I reversed the mosaic effect by doing the opposite 10 more times. This all happened while playing the same drum beats and dance step. In the end, the character is as it begun.

I really like the way Scratch is set up because it is straightforward and easy to understand. It’s not the most advanced or professional program, but as I said it’s a good balance for this class. I really wish there was a way to upload my skit to this blog, but I didn’t see an extension capability. I think it would be fun to create another mini-project with Scratch.